Mark Deleo v. Michael Astrue

MEMORANDUM

Appellant Mark E. Deleo appeals the district court’s remand of his social security benefits application to the Commissioner for further administrative proceedings. The district court found that the administrative law judge improperly rejected assessments of Deleo’s limitations by two treating and one examining physician and a vocational expert that Deleo could not perform any jobs. That evidence, if credited as true, would require the ALJ to find Deleo disabled without any further pro ceedings. See 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520 . The statements of the non-examining physician and the ALJ’s questions about Deleo’s travel and volunteer work would not be sufficient to discredit the findings of the treating and examining physicians and the vocational expert.

We hold that under our circuit’s “credit-as-true” rule, it was reversible error for the district court to remand for further proceedings rather than for computation of benefits. See, e.g., Varney v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 859 F.2d 1396, 1401 (9th Cir.1988) (“Varney II”) (“In cases where there are no outstanding issues that must be resolved before a proper disability determination can be made, and where it is clear from…